Originally published by the Australian Institute of Health & Safety

While chain of responsibility doesn’t apply in every organisation, there are many that still don’t know they are a party in the chain of responsibility while others don’t fully understand the application of heavy vehicle laws to their operations.

Chain of responsibility applies to all organisations that interact with a heavy vehicle to have goods or materials delivered in and/or finished products to be picked up and delivered to their next stop in the supply chain, said Denise Zumpe, founder and director of specialist consultancy CoR Comply.

Prior to 2018, she said chain of responsibility was mostly associated with the transport industry, even though the principle behind it (extending legal liability to parties other than the driver and transport operator) was the same.

“There are many organisations that still don’t know they are a party in the chain of responsibility, there are some that think it means they have to scrutinise the businesses they use to transport goods, not realising it’s about the safety of their own transport activities, not other parties in the chain,” said Zumpe, who spoke ahead of the AIHS National Health and Safety Conference 2024, which will be held at the Melbourne Convention Centre from 21-23 May.

“Some organisations have not traditionally related to the transport industry, but they are transporting their own goods on their own trucks out to worksites.”

Zumpe said most organisations want to do the right thing, and will likely have found some chain of responsibility training and held sessions for warehouse staff and included this in their induction program.

Often, ‘off-the-shelf’ chain of responsibility training is directed at drivers and transport operators and goes into detail about speed management, vehicle maintenance systems and pre-start checks, and driver fatigue.

“But if you’re an organisation that doesn’t have any vehicles, you come at this from a different angle,” said Zumpe.

“Chain of responsibility procedures will describe what an organisation expects a transport provider to have in place in terms of licensed drivers and a drug and alcohol policy, but they won’t mention the organisation’s own transport activities and what they do to identify and control their own risks.

“One of the most common challenges has been understanding what this all means to their particular business and transport activities.”

In 2018, she explained that the Heavy Vehicle National Law adopted some principles from work health and safety legislation (namely, primary duty of care, the standard of care of reasonable practicability to controlling hazards and risks and executive due diligence).

However, there are some important differences, according to Zumpe, who explained the primary duty of care under WHS law applies to workers and workplaces, whereas it applies to a party’s transport activities under the HVNL.

There are also some slight wording changes to the reasonably practicable test and the reasonable steps for an executive to exercise due diligence.

“The duty under both laws is a positive risk-based duty; there does not have to be an incident or injury for a breach to have occurred,” said Zumpe.

She explained that the HVNL addresses the situation where both WHS and the HVNL may apply, with precedence given to WHS over the HVNL, “but where both laws can be complied with, they must be,” she said. “It is only when both can’t that WHS must be over the HVNL.” “Where shared duties can cause confusion is with the principle of shared responsibility in the HVNL, which states the safety of transport activities relating to a heavy vehicle is the shared responsibility of each party in the chain of responsibility for the vehicle,” she said.

“When you put this statement with the typical image of the parties in the chain all being joined together with links in a chain, the message that conveyed was ‘we’re all in this together’, meaning if one party is not compliant, all the parties could be held legally responsible.

“The key to understanding this sits with one word ‘their’. A party is responsible for their transport activities, not anyone else’s just their own.”

Loading a heavy vehicle is a good example of how the HVNL and chain of responsibility run parallel. For example, goods that are to be loaded onto a heavy vehicle must be prepared (packaged, weighed and labelled) so they are safe and secure when the vehicle is moving.

The driver must know what is in the load and the consignment dimensions, and Zumpe said there are also WHS considerations when loading a heavy vehicle, so people and forklifts are separated, and the load is stable and secure when moved.

“One method of restraining a load is to throw a load binder from one side of the vehicle to the other,” she said. “There needs to be a system of work in place to keep the area clear at that time so no one is struck by the load binder, but there also needs to be sufficient space for the load binder to be tightened to secure the load.”

OHS professionals play an important part in certain aspects of chain of responsibility, and Zumpe said that typically, the role of the OHS professional is associated with the health and safety of workers and other people in the workplace.

And transport and/or warehouse operations knew about the weights of loads and how trucks should be loaded and loads restrained.

“But when the HVNL duties involve identifying, eliminating or minimising hazards and risks associated with transport activities and including data on load shift and driver fatigue breaches and talk of safety management systems as means of compliance, organisations turned to the person who already had these skills,” said Zumpe.

The introduction of Chapter 1A to the HVNL in 2018 was a shift from prescriptive to performance-based regulation. “The majority of the HVNL is prescriptive in nature. With driver fatigue, the number of hours a driver can work and when they must stop for a rest break is stated and this must be complied with,” said Zumpe.

“The weight of loads over the vehicle’s axles is another example. So, to ensure the safety of a party’s transport activities, also meant learning some technical elements of transport operations.”

Zumpe will speak at the AIHS National Health and Safety Conference 2024, to be held at the Melbourne Convention Centre from 21-23 May. The conference will offer three days of workshops, presentations, keynote speeches, networking events and a conference dinner. Delegates will have the opportunity to learn from their peers, share knowledge and grow their professional networks. For more information, email events@aihs.org.au, call (03) 8336 1995 or visit the event website.